Portal Wars: The Trilogy

by Jay Allan

  Drogov’s people had already been to three worlds, and now they prepared to transit to Oceania. The bombs there had been set to detonate an hour earlier, and the small robot scanner Drogov had just sent through confirmed that fact. The paradise world, by far the most magnificent planet men had yet discovered now had a deep wound on its rocky waterfront, a deadly cloud of radiation that would poison streams and rivers, contaminate a large stretch of coastline, and kill everything within a thirty-kilometer radius of the main basecamp, including the human soldiers stationed there. In another few minutes, Drogov would give the order, and his soldiers would begin moving through. They would search the base and its surroundings, and they would shoot down anyone still alive. Then, when they were certain no one was left, not a guard who had run off into the hills, not a wounded man hiding in a shelter somewhere, they would move on to the next world. And when they were done, not a soldier would remain on any of the planets Taylor’s soldiers had visited. There would be nothing left but bodies, and silent ruins of the camps that had once housed armies.

  But the warriors of the planetary armies would not have finished their service to UNGov. These dead soldiers were to serve the government’s propaganda needs, become the props in another monstrous lie, one designed to turn the people of Earth against Taylor and their would-be liberators. Samovich and Drogov might have been responsible for the horrifying genocide, but as far as the inhabitants of Earth were concerned, their soldiers were killed by Jake Taylor and his rebels, as retribution for their refusal to join his crazed rampage. Once Drogov had completed his mission of death, Samovich would take to the airwaves, the information networks, even the streets. His propagandists would spread the word about Jake Taylor, the traitor to his race, the human who had gone over to the Tegeri with his murderous comrades…and massacred thousands of loyal Earth soldiers. And Samovich would give his address surrounded by flag-draped coffins, his somber voice, choked with emotion as he eulogized the dead…and promised retribution against the monsters responsible for the heinous act.

  Even Drogov’s dark mind had been surprised at the evil brilliance of the plan, and for a moment he felt a strange chill, almost a fear of his longtime associate. What mind could conceive such a plan?

  Then he glanced at his chronometer and turned toward the first unit in line. “Advance,” he yelled, with all the authority he could muster. And he watched as his men moved steadily forward, one rank at a time disappearing into the swirling lights of the Portal. On to another world, to another terrible graveyard, like Death himself, to run his scythe through the heaps of dead and dying men.

  Chapter 7

  Communiqué Issued from Resistance Headquarters in New York:

  I say, while yet from that tower's base afar,

  We saw two flames of sudden signal rise,

  And further, like a small and distant star,

  A beacon answered.

  “Well, it is done. The message is sent.” Carson Jones sat on a chunk of broken concrete, looking across the room at the old man he’d known so long. Stan Wickes was standing, and Jones would swear his companion seemed ten years younger than he had a few days before, that some new fire raged within him. The old Marine was clearly ready for a fight.

  For all Jones had sworn himself to the struggle against UNGov, now that they had lit the fuse he felt a tidal wave of emotions. Tension, anxiety…fear. Yes, fear, more than he’d ever felt before. He’d always considered himself a courageous man, one ready to fight for what he believed…to die for it if need be. But now he could barely keep himself from shaking as he sat in the abandoned cellar.

  “It’s okay, Carson.” Wickes’ voice was odd, soothing in a way Jones couldn’t quite explain, though he felt it quite strongly. “It’s normal. We all feel it.”

  “What?” Jones asked, trying as hard as he could to maintain his composure.

  “The fear, Carson. The fear before going into battle. You are questioning your courage now, wondering if you are truly ready for what is coming.” Wickes stared at his companion, who looked back, silent, a stunned expression on his face. “Don’t worry, Carson…you will do what you must. We all feel what you are feeling. Any man who says he isn’t scared in battle is lying…or mad.”

  Jones looked up, his eye’s meeting his comrade’s. “You mean you’re scared too?”

  “Of course I’m scared. I’m only human like you. But I have less to lose. I am old, my life lies mostly behind me. My friends from youth, my loved ones…they are gone already. It is easier for me to think only of duty, of striking a blow against those who would see mankind in bondage forever. You are still young, my friend, with the promise of a life yet ahead of you, as I was when I first heard shots fired in anger.”

  Stan Wickes had been a Marine, and a combat veteran. He’d fought in the Pacific War, when the U.S. and its Japanese allies battled against the Russian-backed Chinese Hegemony. It was the last major war the nations of Earth had fought among themselves…and it had fizzled out before it became a true world war. But it lasted long enough for Wickes to see combat, and to learn what it was like to watch friends die.

  He’d been young then, with a girlfriend back home and a family sending him letters every day. He had certainly felt fear then, wave after wave of panic, pushing at him to run, to flee for his life, forsake his comrades, and hide in the jungle. He’d resisted it, and he’d done his duty, but years later it had all faded a bit in memory. He recalled the basics, of course, but the feeling of that primal fear, and the strength he’d somehow managed to summon to resist it…it all felt a bit unreal almost fifty years later.

  “Do you think we have a chance, Stan? I mean a real chance?” Jones’ voice had none of its usual confidence and strength.

  Wickes paused. He knew the answer to that question. Without some external event, the Resistance was likely to fail. He’d almost counseled caution, but then he realized that whatever small chance there was, it was the best they were likely to get. UNGov’s internal security was relentless, and the Resistance had grown weaker, not stronger over the past forty years. He’d seen friends disappear…and waited for days and weeks after, his stomach clenched, his back soaked with sweat, to see if his colleagues had given the interrogators some clue, some bit of trivial information that led them to him.

  He’d been about to tell Carson not to send the communique, to wait for another day, another opportunity. But then he realized that day would, more than likely, never come…certainly not while he still lived. He hesitated, but then he told himself that even a small chance was better than none at all, and he remembered life before UNGov’s takeover, when men and women, at least in some nations, could speak more or less freely, without fear of undue prosecution. It was more like a dream now, fading slowly in the old man’s mind. But it still remained, and while it did, Wickes would do anything for the slightest chance to bring those days back, to know when he died that Jones and Bell, and the others, would taste liberty in their own lives, as he once had.

  “Yes, Carson…we have a chance. A good one as long as we stay focused and do what we must.” He felt a twinge of guilt. He knew he was lying to his friend, or at least twisting the truth beyond recognition. He’d always believed anyone going into battle deserved honesty, but he also knew that whatever chance they had could be lost if there was no hope. And he wouldn’t let that happen, no matter what it took.

  He looked over at Jones, flipping a coin mentally to decide if he’d been convincing enough. “Let’s go, Carson,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time. The other cells will all commence operations at midnight, GMT. And we’ve got to be ready.”

  And you’ll be better off if you’re busy…right up until the balloon goes up.

  * * *

  The UNGov Building in New York was an impressive structure, a skyscraper dating from another time, when America had been a true superpower…the superpower. That golden age of dominance had been long past even before UNGov seized worldwide dominance, and it had been a greatl
y weakened America that had yielded its sovereignty to the Geneva government. Now, New York was a backwater, a city mostly fallen into poverty and despair. It was still home to millions, though its great media and financial industries were mostly gone, both functions having long ago moved to European capitals closer to UN Headquarters in Geneva. Indeed, New York had once been the home of the original United Nations itself, the precursor institution to UNGov, though the fading metropolis had lost that distinction twenty years before the first Portal was discovered.

  The city still retained much of its population, though most of those of means had long ago fled and now there were only teeming masses, workers employed in low-paying government-owned industries or those on relief, barely feeding themselves on the modest benefits they received. Crime was rampant, and people rarely left their homes, huddling instead in fear when they didn’t have to be out for work or to buy food. They lived in mostly crumbling apartment buildings, slowly deteriorating without maintenance, and the surrounding infrastructure had fallen almost into ruin as what little funding the government allocated had been stolen and misdirected by those with influence. It was an urban hell, sucked dry of its resources and left to rot, one of many that dotted UNGov’s Earth.

  Despite the rhetoric and the speeches about the war, about programs to alleviate the suffering of poor citizens around the world, UNGov was at its heart an institution run for itself, to benefit those who held its highest positions. From the top to the bottom it was riddled with greedy, grasping bureaucrats, seeking only to ensure their own comfort and to claw their way to more power. It was a toxic culture, the ultimate manifestation of the ills of the governments that had come before. The people, in all their wallowing, downtrodden misery, were at best a necessary evil in the eyes of those living in the perverse luxury of Geneva.

  The rebel groups around the globe, operating in the shadows for forty years, knew that, but they spent most of their time avoiding detection, seeking to survive as the security forces of totalitarianism hunted down so many of their comrades. There was little doubt millions of others understood the evil of their government as well, though fear kept them quiet. It wasn’t spoken of, certainly not in public, but most people had seen someone—a friend, an acquaintance, a neighbor—dragged away in the night for ‘reeducation.’ Few ever returned.

  It was understandable. Even those with the courage to speak out were stopped by the futility of it all. It was bravery, perhaps, to risk one’s life to strike a blow for freedom, but to die for nothing, to throw oneself on a sword in an act of utter futility? Even the greatest stalwart lost heart when facing such a reality.

  But the revolutionaries would be silent no more. They would cower in fear no more. They had planned for forty years, passed the torch from those who remembered freedom to a generation that had never tasted it. They had paid a steady price in blood, as thousands of their numbers were interrogated and executed. But that was over now. Tonight they would strike a blow for freedom. And once begun, their war would not stop, not while a single one of them still drew breath.

  “The guards are dead.” Bell looked around as he walked toward Carson Jones. There was an eerie satisfaction in his voice that suggested he’d enjoyed killing the two sentries. UNGov’s internal security forces were far from gentle, and most of the members of the Resistance harbored deep resentments. But Bell was a UNGov employee himself, one highly ranked enough to avoid the worst abuses of the enforcers. But he had his own reasons for hating UNGov, and though he’d kept them to himself, they were as potent as those of anyone else in the Resistance. More so even, and a fire burned inside him, pulling from the darkest part of his mind a savage burning hatred. There was nothing Devon Bell wouldn’t do to destroy UNGov. Nothing.

  “Good.” Jones gestured with his hand, urging Bell to hurry, to duck into the alley along with the rest of the team. “Okay,” he said, turning toward the men and women stacked up behind him in the narrow passageway. “It’s time. In…” He glanced down at the old, scuffed watch on his wrist. “…six minutes, we will strike our first blow. At the same time, all around the world, our brothers and sisters will be doing the same. In London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, Hong Kong, Nairobi…everywhere. We have been hunted like animals, our comrades have been captured and killed…but now we strike back with the fury of righteousness. And once this begins, it will not—it cannot—end. From this moment, we hide no more. No, by God, we fight. Every moment, with every gram of strength that remains to us. The future of mankind rides with us, the dying spark of liberty is in our hands. Go, now, each of you. You all know what to do…and though many of us will die, and perhaps none of us shall meet again, never forget that you are all heroes, and with you goes the best that mankind can be.”

  There were perhaps twenty men and women in that alley, and as one they thrust their fists into the air, suppressing the wild shouts they all wanted to scream. Jones knew they were afraid, as he himself was. But he had faith in these people, a firm belief they would do what they must. Whatever chance they—all the rebels worldwide—had, they would give it their best. He tried to push away the doubt, the sober assessments of UNGov’s resources, of the brutal intensity of the internal security agents. Hopelessness would serve nothing, and now was the time to believe…and to think of nothing but victory.

  And something is going on, something out of the ordinary…if UNGov has another problem, if they are distracted enough, perhaps we have a chance…

  “Go,” he repeated, waving his hands. “There is no time. We have less than four minutes.”

  The revolutionaries began to disperse, sneaking away through the maze of alleys and small back streets. They slipped into old buildings, down into abandoned cellars, into the crumbling tunnels of the old subway system. Jones ran too, with Bell right behind. They looked out into the street, and seeing nothing they raced across, ducking into a small service road. They stopped about twenty meters down in, right in front of a gray-haired man in a worn olive-green coat.

  “Captain,” Jones said, “you shouldn’t be here. We have to get away.”

  “Not yet, Carson,” Wickes said, an almost hypnotic sound to his voice. “After forty years we strike at last…this is the first shot of the war to come. I will stay and see it before I leave. I will stay here for all my comrades who are gone, who didn’t live to see this day for themselves.”

  Bell sighed. “Carson, we don’t have time for this…if we get caught here it just weakens the rebellion. We have to go…get into hiding and prepare for the next blow.” Bell respected the old Marine, but he didn’t share the almost limitless adoration his comrade did. He knew Jones’ father had been in the service too, another Marine, though one who’d died years before. The elder Jones had been wounded in action before the UNGov takeover, and when the new government downgraded the medical ratings of the old veterans, his health steadily deteriorated. He’d been dead for more than twenty years now.

  Bell understood his friend’s attitude toward Wickes, but in his mind all things were subordinate to destroying UNGov. There was no place for sentiment, no room for pointless gestures. He stripped the veneer away and saw their goal as he knew it truly was. To destroy UNGov, to kill its people, to grind it into the dust of history, without mercy, without pity. He was ready to do that, but he sometimes doubted his comrades were committed enough to become what they would have to become. Monsters savage enough to destroy another monster.

  The images in his head fueled his hatred, the face of a woman, young pretty. Lydia had been his lover, though she’d always insisted they keep the relationship a secret. He found out why a year later. She had been a member of the Resistance, one whose luck eventually failed her. As far as Bell had known, she just disappeared, and it took him almost a year to discover what had happened to her, how she had died on the concrete floor of an interrogation room in such torment as he could hardly imagine. He died that day, at least every part of him that was human. All that remained was a shadowy revenant, living only for vengean
ce.

  “Just a minute more, Devon,” Carson said, humoring the old man as Bell knew he would. He opened his mouth, ready to argue, but he stopped himself. It was pointless. And if he had to stay here he might as well watch too. He turned and looked down the long alley out into the street. It wasn’t much of a view, but if they were any closer they’d almost certainly be injured by the debris or picked up almost immediately by the UNGov response teams. Bell didn’t like the delay, but he was still pretty sure they could get away after the blast, unless they got closer.

  “Twenty seconds,” Jones said softly.

  Bell’s eyes shifted, falling on the old Marine for a moment. Wickes was a bit more prone to fits of remembrance and nostalgia, but Bell admired the old man nevertheless. He knew Wickes had his own grievances against UNGov. Earth’s masters had treated the veterans of the old nation states shamefully, refusing to honor any of the promises they’d been made. And for years, the internal security teams had focused heavily on the retired soldiers and Marines as suspects, imprisoning them for the slightest signs of resistance.

  Yes, we all have our reasons for revenge, the fire that drives us…that will allow us to do what we must, whatever it takes. Bell’s thoughts drifted, back to a blue sky, a sunny day…and a woman with auburn hair, wild, blowing in the breeze.

  Then the ground shook and the sound of the explosion pulled him back to reality. He looked out, just before he and his companions were engulfed by a massive cloud of dust…and in the distance, he heard the rumbling sound of the great building coming down. He was still looking, but his sight was blocked by the dust clouds. He coughed and rasped for air, and then he felt a tug on his arm. It was Captain Wickes, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him back, down into a large cellar door…closing it.